news-record.com

For those of you who were enjoying the Labor Day weekend, here’s a story I wrote for Sunday dipping back into the video poker issue.

GREENSBORO — Don’t call it video poker. Video slots is right out, too. Those are illegal in North Carolina.

That machine blipping away in the corner of your gas station or back of the corner bar is a sweepstakes terminal. You also can find them in standalone parlors, mini-casinos wedged into strip malls next to dollar stores and nail salons.

Thanks to a combination of legislative inaction and a pair of Superior Court rulings, those machines are legal, virtually untaxed and spreading virtually unregulated throughout North Carolina.

That’s a problem, say lawmakers on both sides of a debate over legalization, gambling-addiction specialists and even some of the machines’ owners.

Click here for the whole thing.

My father, of all people, sort of ribbed me for writing about this – again. But this issue is an important one for several reasons:

• If there is, truly, revenue in them there hills, one would think lawmakers would go prospecting for it.
• Of course, lawmakers thought they had outlawed these type of games twice in the past few years. So this whole debate calls into question the legislature’s will and ability to lay down the law, so to speak.
• And there’s the very practical, everyday question of how North Carolina is going to deal with gambling and gaming issues today and on down the road.
• Finally, wither the lottery? I’ve heard a lot of people on all sides of the debate speculate about the lottery’s designs on video poker and the like. But back this spring, lottery officials swore they weren’t engaged in this debate … yet. (Click here for that.)

One other note: The judge involved in the High Point case write me a quick e-mail pointing out what he considered a point of imprecision. He said, rightly, that his order only covers machines made by the two companies involved in the lawsuit that’s before him.

While that’s true – and I should have done a better job laying out what the order said – a couple points:

• My understanding from folks in the industry is there are only four companies who make these kinds of machines. I haven’t been able to confirm this to my liking, but if true, then you would have half the machines in a given market protected.
• Folks on the law enforcement side I’ve talked to are pretty cagey about going on the record and investigating these enterprises right now. They’re unsure about how to sort one machine out from another so have gotten gun shy about the lot of them.
• The High Point case could be rendered moot if the Court of Appeals finds for the plaintiffs in a Wake County case, which seeks to legalize all forms of video poker across the state. From what I’ve been told, again- not confirmed – we’re not likely to see an appellate court ruling in that case until October. And the best guess is whatever the ruling is there, it will be appealed.